I'm tired of hearing liberals on their message boards all suprised of corruption/scandals surrounding government. Listen to them lately and it sounds like it is only a recently developing phenomenon, Right? Wrong. I found a nice article on the Progressive Review's website that you may/may not have not seen, it sums the Clinton Legacy up pretty good.

Here's the Article: The Clinton Legacy

The Progressive Review

This list was compiled at the end of the Clinton administration.

Our Clinton Scandal Index

RECORDS SET

- The only president ever impeached on grounds of personal malfeasance - Most number of convictions and guilty pleas by friends and associates* - Most number of cabinet officials to come under criminal investigation - Most number of witnesses to flee country or refuse to testify - Most number of witnesses to die suddenly - First president sued for sexual harassment. - First president accused of rape. - First first lady to come under criminal investigation - Largest criminal plea agreement in an illegal campaign contribution case - First president to establish a legal defense fund. - First president to be held in contempt of court - Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions - Greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad - First president disbarred from the US Supreme Court and a state court

* According to our best information, 40 government officials were indicted or convicted in the wake of Watergate. A reader computes that there was a total of 31 Reagan era convictions, including 14 because of Iran-Contra and 16 in the Department of Housing & Urban Development scandal. 47 individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine were convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes with 33 of these occurring during the Clinton administration itself. There were in addition 61 indictments or misdemeanor charges. 14 persons were imprisoned. A key difference between the Clinton story and earlier ones was the number of criminals with whom he was associated before entering the White House.

Using a far looser standard that included resignations, David R. Simon and D. Stanley Eitzen in Elite Deviance, say that 138 appointees of the Reagan administration either resigned under an ethical cloud or were criminally indicted. Curiously Haynes Johnson uses the same figure but with a different standard in "Sleep-Walking Through History: America in the Reagan Years: "By the end of his term, 138 administration officials had been convicted, had been indicted, or had been the subject of official investigations for official misconduct and/or criminal violations. In terms of number of officials involved, the record of his administration was the worst ever."

STARR-RAY INVESTIGATION

- Number of Starr-Ray investigation convictions or guilty pleas (including one governor, one associate attorney general and two Clinton business partners): 14 - Number of Clinton Cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 5 - Number of Reagan cabinet members who came under criminal investigation: 4 - Number of top officials jailed in the Teapot Dome Scandal: 3

CRIME STATS

- Number of individuals and businesses associated with the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 47 - Number of these convictions during Clinton's presidency: 33 - Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61 - Number of congressional witnesses who have pleaded the Fifth Amendment, fled the country to avoid testifying, or (in the case of foreign witnesses) refused to be interviewed: 122

FROM THE WASHINGTON TIMES: In the portions of President Clinton's Jan. 17 deposition that have been made public in the Paula Jones case, his memory failed him 267 times. This is a list of his answers and how many times he gave each one.

I don't remember - 71 I don't know - 62 I'm not sure - 17 I have no idea - 10 I don't believe so - 9 I don't recall - 8 I don't think so - 8 I don't have any specific recollection - 6 I have no recollection - 4 Not to my knowledge - 4 I just don't remember - 4 I don't believe - 4 I have no specific recollection - 3 I might have - 3 I don't have any recollection of that - 2 I don't have a specific memory - 2 I don't have any memory of that - 2 I just can't say - 2 I have no direct knowledge of that - 2 I don't have any idea - 2 Not that I recall - 2 I don't believe I did - 2 I can't remember - 2 I can't say - 2 I do not remember doing so - 2 Not that I remember - 2 I'm not aware - 1 I honestly don't know - 1 I don't believe that I did - 1 I'm fairly sure - 1 I have no other recollection - 1 I'm not positive - 1 I certainly don't think so - 1 I don't really remember - 1 I would have no way of remembering that - 1 That's what I believe happened - 1 To my knowledge, no - 1 To the best of my knowledge - 1 To the best of my memory - 1 I honestly don't recall - 1 I honestly don't remember - 1 That's all I know - 1 I don't have an independent recollection of that - 1 I don't actually have an independent memory of that - 1 As far as I know - 1 I don't believe I ever did that - 1 That's all I know about that - 1 I'm just not sure - 1 Nothing that I remember - 1 I simply don't know - 1 I would have no idea - 1 I don't know anything about that - 1 I don't have any direct knowledge of that - 1 I just don't know - 1 I really don't know - 1 I can't deny that, I just -- I have no memory of that at all - 1

THE CLINTON LEGACY: LONELY HONOR

Here are some of the all too rare public officials, reporters, and others who spoke truth to the dismally corrupt power of Bill and Hill Clinton's political machine -- some at risk to their careers, others at risk to their lives. A few points to note:

- Those corporatist media reporters who attempted to report the story often found themselves muzzled; some even lost their jobs. The only major dailies that consistently handled the story well were the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Times.

- Nobody on this list has gotten rich and many you may not have even heard of. Taking on the Clintons typically has not been a happy or rewarding experience. At least ten reporters have been fired, transferred off their beats, resigned, or otherwise gotten into trouble because of their work on the scandals. Whistleblowing is even less appreciated within the government. One study of whistleblowers found that 232 out of 233 them reported suffering retaliation; another study found reprisals in about 95% of cases.

- Contrary to the popular impression, the politics of those listed ranges from the left to the right, and from the ideological to the independent.

PUBLIC OFFICIALS

MIGUEL RODRIGUEZ was a prosecutor on the staff of Kenneth Starr. His attempts to uncover the truth in the Vincent Foster death case were repeatedly foiled and he was the subject of planted stories undermining his credibility and implying that he was unstable. Rodriguez eventually resigned.

JEAN DUFFEY: Head of a joint federal-county drug task force in Arkansas. Her first instructions from her boss: "Jean, you are not to use the drug task force to investigate any public official." Duffey's work, however, led deep into the heart of the Dixie Mafia, including members of the Clinton machine and the investigation of the so-called "train deaths." Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports that when she produced a star witness who could testify to Clinton's involvement with cocaine, the local prosecuting attorney, Dan Harmon issued a subpoena for all the task force records, including "the incriminating files on his own activities. If Duffey had complied it would have exposed 30 witnesses and her confidential informants to violent retributions. She refused." Harmon issued a warrant for her arrest and friendly cops told her that there was a $50,000 price on her head. She eventually fled to Texas. The once-untouchable Harmon was later convicted of racketeering, extortion and drug dealing.

BILL DUNCAN: An IRS investigator in Arkansas who drafted some 30 federal indictments of Arkansas figures on money laundering and other charges. Clinton biographer Roger Morris quotes a source who reviewed the evidence: "Those indictments were a real slam dunk if there ever was one." The cases were suppressed, many in the name of "national security." Duncan was never called to testify. Other IRS agents and state police disavowed Duncan and turned on him. Said one source, "Somebody outside ordered it shut down and the walls went up."

RUSSELL WELCH: An Arkansas state police detective working with Duncan. Welch developed a 35-volume, 3,000 page archive on drug and money laundering operations at Mena. His investigation was so compromised that a high state police official even let one of the targets of the probe look through the file. At one point, Welch was sprayed in the face with poison, later identified by the Center for Disease Control as anthrax. He would write in his diary, "I feel like I live in Russia, waiting for the secret police to pounce down. A government has gotten out of control. Men find themselves in positions of power and suddenly crimes become legal." Welch is no longer with the state police.

DAN SMALTZ: Smaltz did an outstanding job investigating and prosecuting charges involving illegal payoffs to Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, yet was treated with disparaging and highly inaccurate reporting by the likes of the David Broder and the NY Times. Espy was acquitted under a law that made it necessary to not only prove that he accepted gratuities but that he did something specific in return. On the other hand, Tyson Foods copped a plea in the same case, paying $6 million in fines and serving four years' probation. The charge: that Tyson had illegally offered Espy $12,000 in airplane rides, football tickets and other payoffs. In the Espy investigation, Smaltz obtained 15 convictions and collected over $11 million in fines and civil penalties. Offenses for which convictions were obtained included false statements, concealing money from prohibited sources, illegal gratuities, illegal contributions, falsifying records, interstate transportation of stolen property, money laundering, and illegal receipt of USDA subsidies. Incidentally, Janet Reno blocked Smaltz from pursuing leads aimed at allegations of major drug trafficking in Arkansas and payoffs to the then governor of the state, WJ Clinton. Espy had become Ag secretary only after being flown to Arkansas to get the approval of chicken king Don Tyson.

DAVID SCHIPPERS was House impeachment counsel and a Chicago Democrat. He did a highly creditable job but since he didn't fit the right-wing conspiracy theory, the Clintonista media downplayed his work. Thus most Americans don't know that he told NewsMax, "Let me tell you, if we had a chance to put on a case, I would have put live witnesses before the committee. But the House leadership, and I'm not talking about Henry Hyde, they just killed us as far as time was concerned. I begged them to let me take it into this year. Then I screamed for witnesses before the Senate. But there was nothing anybody could do to get those Senators to show any courage. They told us essentially, you're not going to get 67 votes so why are you wasting our time." Schippers also said that while a number of representatives looked at additional evidence kept under seal in a nearby House building, not a single senator did.

JOHN CLARKE: When Patrick Knowlton stopped to relieve himself in Ft. Marcy Park 70 minutes before the discovery of Vince Foster's body, he saw things that got him into deep trouble. His interview statements were falsified and prior to testifying he claims he was overtly harassed by more than a score of men in a classic witness intimidation technique. In some cases there were witnesses. John Clarke has been his dogged lawyer in the witness intimidation case that has been largely ignored by the media, even when the three-judge panel overseeing the Starr investigation permitted Knowlton to append a 20 page addendum to the Starr Report.

OTHER

THE ARKANSAS COMMITTEE: What would later be known as the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy actually began on the left - as a group of progressive students at the University of Arkansas had formed the Arkansas Committee to look into Mena, drugs, money laundering, and Arkansas politics. This committee was the source of some of the important early Clinton stories including those published in the Progressive Review.

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION SCANDALS E-LIST: Moderated by Ray Heizer, this list has been subject to all the idiosyncrasies of Internet bulletin boards, but it has nonetheless proved invaluable to researchers and journalists.

JOURNALISTS

JERRY SEPER of the Washington Times was far and away the best beat reporter of the story, handling it week after week in the best tradition of investigative journalism. If other reporters had followed Seper's lead, the history of the Clintons' machine might have been quite different.

AMBROSE EVANS-PRITCHARD of the London Telegraph did a remarkable job of digging into some of the seamiest tales from Arkansas and the Clinton past. Other early arrivals on the scene were Alexander Cockburn and Jeff Gerth.

CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, among other fine reports on the Clinton scandals, did the best job laying out the facts in the Vince Foster death case.

ROGER MORRIS AND SALLY DENTON wrote a major expose of events at Mena, but at the last moment the Washington Post's brass ordered the story killed. It was published by Penthouse and later included in Morris' "Partners in Power," the best biography of the Clintons.

SAM SMITH of the Progressive Review wrote the first book (Shadows of Hope, University of Indiana Press, 1994) deconstructing the Clinton myth and the Review developed a major database on the topic.

The Clintons, to adapt a line from Dr. Johnson, were not only corrupt, they were the cause of corruption in others. Seldom in America have so many come to excuse so much mendacity and malfeasance as during the Clinton years. These rare exceptions cited above, and others unmentioned, deserve our deep thanks.

THE CLINTON LEGACY The Hidden Election

USA Today calls it "the hidden election," in which nearly 7,000 state legislative seats are decided with only minimal media and public attention. The paper took brief notice because this is the year the state legislatures perform their most important national function: drawing revised congressional districts based on the most recent census.

But there's another important national story here: further evidence of the disaster that Bill Clinton has been for the Democratic Party. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, Democrats held a 1,542 seat lead in the state bodies in 1990. As of last November that lead had shrunk to 288. That's a loss of over 1,200 state legislative seats, nearly all of them under Clinton. Across the US, the Democrats control only 65 more state senate seats than the Republicans.

Further, in 1992, the Democrats controlled 17 more state legislatures than the Republicans. After November, the Republicans control one more than the Democrats. Not only is this a loss of 9 legislatures under Clinton, but it is the first time since 1954 that the GOP has controlled more state legislatures than the Democrats (they tied in 1968).

Here's what happened to the Democrats under Clinton, based on our latest figures:

- GOP seats gained in House since Clinton became president: 48 - GOP seats gained in Senate since Clinton became president: 8 - GOP governorships gained since Clinton became president: 11 - GOP state legislative seats gained since Clinton became president: 1,254 as of 1998 - State legislatures taken over by GOP since Clinton became president: 9 - Democrat officeholders who have become Republicans since Clinton became president: 439 as of 1998 - Republican officeholders who have become Democrats since Clinton became president: 3

For those who don't know, Progressive Review is on the Left side of the aisle-- it's founder, Sam Smith, was one of the earliest to catch on to the Clinton's ( both ) corruption, and according to the stories I've heard, was run out of DC for his apostasy. In my opinion, he's one of the few on that side with some honor. Check their site- they even support gun rights!

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posted on 10/31/2005 12:32:38 PM PST
by backhoe
(The 1990's? The Decade of Fraud(s)™...)

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